Part II in our series about using your skills and resources to generate non-cheer profit
By Brian Payne
Cheer Biz News April/May 2010
Proof of Insurance: When entering into an agreement with daycare/preschool facilities, be prepared to show liability insurance and possibly an additional third-party insured naming the daycare/preschool. Contact your local chamber of commerce and abide by any local ordinances.
Why is delivery pizza so successful? It’s a win-win for both the business owner and the consumer because the product comes to the consumer without taking up precious storefront space during prime time, and the consumer is willing to pay a price for convenience. This principle applies directly to cheer gyms. In this installment of our “More Money Now” series, we cover partnering with local preschool and daycare facilities to offer enrichment programs.
Daycare students on a field trip to the author's gym
You can bring your teaching skills and a few pieces of equipment to daycares and preschools to increase your business’ revenue without taking up mat time in your facility or trying to cram one more class or practice into the limited hours after school lets out. Plus, you’ll be developing future customers (and income). Think about it: If you get your product name and service in front of the consumer at an early age, and provide quality instruction week after week, you’ll develop customer loyalty before they even step foot inside your gym. That type of bond will encourage the potential tumbler/cheerleader to seek you out and follow your lead prior to other activities becoming a conflict of interest.
Preschool and daycare target markets have some common denominators that are of interest to the gym owner, and they include the following:
- Disposable Income: Parents of children in full-day preschools and extended daycare at a school or church have to pay for those services. There will always be exceptions, such as government-assisted funding, scholarships, state-funded voluntary pre-K, second/third child discounts and staff tuition waivers, but in the majority of cases, working families have enough additional income to pay for these services. Dual-income households that can afford $175 per week for childcare won’t balk at an additional $5 to $10 per week for a tumbling program.
- Captive Audience: Children in full-day preschool or daycare are stuck there all day long. School-age children who get dropped off at a daycare facility by the school bus are usually there from the time school lets out until Mom or Dad picks them up after work, which sometimes is as long as four hours.
- Activity Space: According to most county and childcare service guidelines, there has to be an adequate amount of activity space based on a formula involving the number of children times a number of square feet per child at maximum capacity. (For more on these guidelines, search for your state’s regulations from the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education) The odds are in your favor that the indoor area will accommodate enough room for a series of tumbling mats. If that facility is connected to a church, there’s the additional perk of access to a fellowship hall, cafeteria or other large open space.
- Geographic Convenience: It makes sense to solicit institutions that are near your facility, and then expand your perimeter outward. If your mobile tumbling program parents can get to the preschool or church, they can probably get to your gym easily. Driving time to and from the gym is a consideration, especially if you network your way into providing a service by hosting field trips on a regular basis from schools and sites that have a budget and transportation. The field trips would involve picking up a group of students at a school or center and transporting them to your gym, charging a fee as a source of income—all while exposing your facility to a future customer base. Just make sure you’re covered: Insurance carriers have riders for special events and onetime occurrences. Companies that insure birthday parties and sleepovers will also cover field trips. Auto insurance companies will provide additional coverage for transporting groups, but it may require a commercial or chauffeur’s license.
- Adaptable Variety: As a creative tumbling coach, you’ll be able to take a few basic mats and use them 10 different ways in a single lesson plan. (For ideas, see below.) Most preschools, elementary schools, church and private school extended-care programs have the same playground equipment for the entire year and not much budget for indoor equipment. You’ll be the superhero who brings something different every week.
- Alleviation of Parental Guilt: Parents who have the option of signing up their child for a weekly tumbling program at the preschool without making an extra trip to a gymnastics facility after a long day at the office will be strong supporters of your program, especially if they ask their child how their day was and the first thing they say is: “Tumbling club was great!”
- Additional Payroll Hours and Additional Cash Flow During Off-Peak Hours: One of the reasons cheer gyms lose coaches is because they have to go out and get a “real” job (evening coaching hours don’t pay the bills at home). Getting a satellite tumbling program into the preschools and after-school enrichment programs provides extra payroll hours for staff, pays for itself immediately and generates a great deal of cash flow without taking up any cheer gym floor space.
- Minimal Investment: Any gym that’s invested in a spring floor, tumbling tramp and tumbling mats has probably purchased mats that are suitable for the mobile tumbling program. There are specialty mats for preschool that wouldn’t be suitable for cheer tumbling classes, but many skill shape mats work very well in a mobile tumbling program, including the folding incline, octagon, three-section trapezoid and folding panel mats. As an extra cost-cutting note in today’s economy, don’t sacrifice your folding panel mats as the base mat for the activities. Six folding 4′ x 6′ cheer foam/carpet sections (see examples at www.tiffinmats.com) can cover a lot of floor space for preschool or rec tumbling classes; they’re lightweight, easy to transport and quick to set up. Use these to cover the bare floor, and then assemble your tumbling circuit on top.
Getting Your Foot in the Door
When it comes to approaching and convincing preschools and daycares to agree to your mobile program, an insider always helps. How many of your cheerleaders have younger siblings who go to preschool or daycare? At least half of your Mini and Peewee squads were in preschool two years ago. How many daycares within driving distance of your cheer gym advertise that they go on field trips? That’s an open invitation for you to present your services. Church schools without a gym teacher—or gymnasium—are also plum customers.
It’s a win-win situation for you and the childcare businesses. We’ve covered the potential boon for you, but what do they get out of it? Energy expenditure, structure, discipline, positive health and fitness role models, something fun and different every week and more. On tumbling day, children will be excited and head to preschool without a struggle. Plus, teachers can make sure children always pick up around the classroom before they go to the activity area for tumbling; many teachers use this as a behavior modification tool. Preschools often are competitive for enrollment, so the directors use the tumbling program as an added benefit and enrichment for new customers. I rarely give a percentage to the schools because my prices are so low, which allows everyone to afford it, thereby giving me almost 100 percent enrollment at all schools I go to. If I have to give a percentage back to the school, it’s 10 or 20 percent; however, I’ll raise my rates with the understanding that the price increase is a fundraiser for the school. I will also insist on a birthday list so I can solicit all the students at the school for my gym birthday parties—supporting another non-cheer profit center and a clever way to boost enrollment.
Tumbling Club Activities
When it comes to lesson plans, the possibilities are endless if you’re creative with your equipment. Use different lesson plans, some geared toward specific themes, props or holidays. For example, a “swamp games” lesson plan includes jumping over giant inflatable alligator pool toys, crawling through a swamp of rubber snakes, and hanging like possums on a tree branch (gymnastics bar). Other lesson plans include “dinosaur day,” “hats around the world,” “everything with a ‘B’,” “mountains and caves” and “ball day,” to name a few.
Each lesson plan should include some cardio on a mini-trampoline or exercise rebounder, tumbling forwards/backwards/sideways, a swinging activity on the bar, a balancing activity and something spatial with tunnels, mat mazes, blocks and mat shapes. You’re limited to the number of mats you can fit into your vehicle, so you need to find 10 different ways to use each mat so you can change the look and direction every couple of reps throughout the circuit.
“Big Money, Big Fun” is a lecture that has been seen at Cheerleading Worlds, USA Gymnastics Region 8 Congress, American All Star Coaches Convention, Midwest Premier Coaches Conference and CheerCon, to name a few. The lecture includes marketing tools for contacting and getting into the preschools, budget considerations for equipment investment that’s multi-faceted for cheer programs and mobile tumbling circuits, sample lesson plans and more. Staff training is available for all-star gyms and coaches associations by contacting Brian Payne at acrojaxgym@gmail.com or by calling 904-273-8876. A three-day workshop at the Jacksonville Beach, FL, facility is offered occasionally and includes hands-on training, spotting techniques, marketing strategies, curriculum development and observation with preschool, trampoline and power tumbling programs.
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